Darth Maul stared fixedly at the form of Darth Lara Croft on his screen, courtesy of his new Playstation. He was just a few steps away from the secret easter egg of Lara and her Lingerie Lightsaber. With a trembling, eager hand he began pushing the button code. If the information he'd downloaded off of the MicroForce Network was correct, this would prove to be a far better view than the Naboo Queen and her blasters had been. The command code required 75 keystrokes and, for some odd reason, a French/English dictionary but Maul felt these were small considerations for the greater good of the Dark Side.

Carefully he plugged in the codes, becoming one with the Force to make sure each command was carefully timed. As he reached the fortieth number in the sequence Lara began to take off her clothes. Once past fifty the appropriate music began playing.

It was ironically just after code 68 that Lord Sidious showed up.

"My apprentice," Sidious said as he oiled his way into the room, clicking off the game with a quick and casual wave of his hand, "I have a task for you."

"My master," Maul said after what he felt was an appropriately respectful moment of silence, "I have a suggestion for your task which I feel is anatomically incorrect and most likely impossible for your species. However," he added, giving Sidious his best sarcastic smile, "I would love to hear it."

Sidious grinned, patting Maul proudly, if carefully, on the top of his head. "Very good, my apprentice. Feel your anger! Let the bitterness rage within you. Feel the bile rise within you as you nurse your hatred of me! Let the loathing burn inside of you, eating away at your guts and black soul until there is nothing left! Then you will know how to prepare yourself to strike out at me!"

"I will also know several good recipes for Pepto-Bismol mixers, my master."

"And this, too, prepares you for the Dark Side," Sidious assured him.

"And an early grave, my master."

"Don't be silly, Maul," Sidious said. "Only the good die young." Absentmindedly Sidious reached down to skritch My Apprentice and present her with a catnip mouse. "In any event, Maul, I do not have time for idle chit-chat. I have a task for you and it must be completed by tonight."

Sighing, Maul stood and prepared for the inevitable. "What is it now, my master? Yet another cute and fluffy task to prepare me to rise up against you?"

"Nonsense, Maul. Fluffy is for Jedis. Tonight's task is nothing like that." Sidious's smile bordered on leering. "It's very manly. Rather butch, in fact."

Maul, through years of practice, kept himself from throwing up. "Yes, master?"

"I want you to fix a car for me, Maul," Sidious said. "It's an old one. A classic in fact. I bought it as a bribe for another Senator. He adores the older models with big backseats."

As Sidious treated him to another leer, Maul kept himself from making the obvious joke. "And what do you want me to do with it, my master?"

"Fix it up. The blasted thing is on its last legs. I need it presentable and in good enough condition that he'll agree to anything I ask. And we all know - "

"Yes, yes," Maul waved this off, irritably. "The mind shudders to think of what you would ask him. All right, master. I will do it."

"Good boy. It's down in the garage and I need it by tonight." Sidious let himself out, pausing when he reached the door. "Oh, and that little Jedi lover of yours was nosing around. I told him where he could meet you."

Maul decided, after a brief moment, that French/English dictionaries made excellent projectiles.

"Don't be such a prude, Maul," Sidious said, ducking. Once more the leer was trotted out for general amusement. "You make a lovely couple."

"Master?"

"Yes?"

"What is your feeling about being locked in a cage with a poisonous Raisa tiger?"

"Rather painful and unpleasant. Why?"

Maul smiled. "Just checking."

***

A half hour later Maul was in the garage, toolbox in hand, car in front of him.

This wasn't good.

When Sidious had said it was a classic car, Maul had assumed he was speaking metaphorically. Instead he found that, in fact, this was a car. A hulking bit of metal, chrome and plush pleather seating as far as the eye could see.

Likewise, an oil leak as far as the nose could smell. It was staining Maul's shoes.

He felt this was a good enough condition for the car as far as the Dark Side was concerned, but since Sidious had specified for it to be fixed up he supposed he was actually going to have to make an effort.

He cracked open the hood.

He immediately cracked his head upon said hood when a voice came out of nowhere behind him.

"Hi."

"Die the death of a thousand plague-ridden banthas, Jedi."

Obi-Wan laughed. "You didn't get a good night's sleep last night, did you?"

Maul considered pointing out that this was entirely due to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon hitting notes he didn't think real men could hit while in bed last night, but then decided that was an entire topic of conversation best left avoided. Instead, he leveled his best smile at the twit. "Have I told you how happy I am to see you?" he asked.

Obi-Wan frowned. "No. No you haven't."

"Take the hint."

Obi-Wan laughed again. Maul wondered if they truly did put something funny into the special sauce in the Jedi cafeteria. "You're very cute when you're grumpy, you know."

Maul snarled, itching for his lightsaber. "Sith. Are. Not. CUTE." Lacking a saber, he threw a wrench at Obi-Wan instead.

He missed. Obi-Wan smiled, picked it up and handed it back to him. "You dropped this."

Maul snatched it out of his hand. "Did I? My mistake. I must have confused it with your hamster. Do let me know if I make the same mistake again." With that, he turned back to the engine, hoping the pathetic padawan would leave if he was ignored.

"Um -"

Maul closed his eyes and counted to ten. He should have known better than to think ignoring Obi-Wan would make him go away. After all, the moron was in a relationship with Qui-Gon after all. "What? And I suggest that whatever you are about to say should be very interesting, entertaining and not revolt me in any way. I have work to do."

Obi-Wan nodded, clearly screwed his courage up, then spoke in a rush. "IwaswonderingifyouwantedtogotothespecialconcertattheGreyForcewithmetonight."

Maul ran that over in his head a few times, tried to translate it, then decided he didn't care. He continued working.

"Well?"

Maul went for what he felt was the safest answer. "No."

"But why?" Obi-Wan looked crushed. It suited him. After a few moments, his ability to think caught up with him and attempted to solve the problem. "Is it this?" he gestured to the car. "Because if it is, I could help."

"The only way you could help this car is to stop breathing on it," Maul said. "It's bad enough I shall have to scrub your reflection out of it later."

"It could be a lot of fun."

"No it couldn't. Listening to babies cry is fun. Anything having to do with you is a painful, agonizing torture which leaves me psychologically scarred and terrified that your race was given the right to vote under our current system of government. Now go away."

Obi-Wan took this in, seemed ready to say something, stopped, then nodded. "Alright. If you're not ready for a relationship -"

"We do NOT have a relationship."

"- yet that's OK. I can respect that." Obi-Wan gathered himself up and looked out towards the open garage door. "I really couldn't go out tonight anyway. I've got a date with Qui-Gon."

"I thought I told you not to make me ill."

Obi-Wan continued as though he hadn't heard. "He said he'd take me out to the Naboo café tonight. You know, that new place? Supposedly it's got really good seafood."

"Feel free to alert me at anytime to a moment in which I care," Maul said. He swore to himself as his hands became covered in a spurt of oil.

"Anyway, it's real exclusive and he said he'd take me tonight as a special treat." Obi-Wan sighed, looking out of the garage door again. "He should be here any moment. He said he'd pick me up after his meeting."

"Uh-huh," Maul attempted to shoo My Apprentice, who had appeared as though out of nowhere, out of his way. For some reason she insisted on standing right in front of where he needed to see.

Obi-Wan checked the time. "Actually, he should have been here a while ago. I guess his meeting's running late."

Maul, while attempting to turn Obi-Wan's inane chatter down to a low drone in the back of his head, also attempted to translate the instruction manual into a language he could understand. Currently, if he was reading it right, he needed to get a 3/8 screwdriver to open up the carburetor, lift up the lid and place a small, ripened banana on the inside.

"...I can't imagine why his meeting with Master Windu would take so long," Obi-Wan continued.

The jist of what the padawan was saying finally caught up with Maul. He stood up to look at Obi-Wan. "He's late?"

Obi-Wan looked up at him, startled to find Maul staring at him. "Yes."

"For a date with you?"

"Yes."

"And he's currently in a meeting with Mace Windu?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

Maul looked at him for a good, long moment. Obi-Wan, innocently, looked back. The shoe, as Maul pretty much expected, didn't drop. He tried again. "That doesn't strike you as suspicious?"

Maul watched the Padawan's retreating figure with pleasure. Not that kind of pleasure, he told himself firmly. Rather the pleasure in crushing the little Jedi twit's dreams.

Definitely not the kind of pleasure that appreciated a view of Obi-Wan from the backside.

Definitely.

Maul turned his attention back to the manly task of fixing up the car.

Obi-Wan sat out in front of the garage, making a spot for himself on the curb as he waited.

Maul cursed in six different languages, three of which were real, as he discovered that the back windows to the car didn't open.

Obi-Wan shifted his position to something more comfortable.

Maul, after checking and rechecking several diagrams, found out that fifteen key engine pieces had actually been relocated to the trunk.

Obi-Wan perked up every time a speeder that resembled Qui-Gon's passed by.

Two hours later, Maul abandoned the tool box and rebuilt the engine using nothing but duct tape.

Obi-Wan tried standing. Then sitting again.

After three tries, Maul was able to change the color of the car from powder blue to midnight black.

Obi-Wan began to softly whistle one of his and Qui-Gon's songs.

Gritting his teeth, Maul found out that with the proper tools any car could become a convertible.

Three hours later, it began to rain. Obi-Wan remained outside, getting wetter and more pathetic by the moment.

Maul, calling upon his most sympathetic and caring Sith instincts, closed the garage door so he wouldn't have to look at him.

My Apprentice, having found the remote, opened the door again.

Five minutes later Maul lost the staring contest between him and the cat and the door stayed open.

Thirty minutes later, Obi-Wan was still out in the rain.

Forty minutes later, with the rain still pouring outside, Maul sat back and admired his handiwork. The car had been ripped apart and put back together six ways from Sunday but, he had to admit, was still as damned ugly as when he started.

But at least it worked, which was all Sidious had asked for. Maul decided to chalk this one up in the "win" category and headed back upstairs.

Halfway to the elevator, he heard Obi-Wan sniffle.

His finger on the "up" button, he heard Obi-Wan do it again.

His finger jamming the "up" button to within an inch of its pathetic and insignificant life, he heard Obi-Wan start to sob.

The elevator doors opened, and Maul heard them close as he stood outside with Obi-Wan in the rain.

As he did so, he firmly ignored the way the Jedi twit's soaking wet clothes clung to him.

"Are you going to stand out here all day or do you have intelligence enough to come inside and keep yourself from infecting me with whatever illness you're bound to catch from this bit of pathetic stupidity?"

Obi-Wan, faced streaked with tears and rainwater, looked up at him. "He said he'd come."

"He's also said he's hot shit and the best you've ever head."

Obi-Wan stared at him blankly.

"The walls are thin. You should know that by now. By the way, he is not your Daddy."

Obi-Wan had the decency to blush.

"Are you coming in or what?"

Obi-Wan gave him a hopeful look. "I could use a hot shower."

"And I could use a break," Maul said. "Don't push it, Jedi. I'm two steps away from locking your carcass into my trunk, closing the garage door and leaving you to breathe in exhaust fumes until a long white tunnel opens up before you and your primate relatives beckon to you from the other side."

Obi-Wan smiled, standing up and looking at him in a far too possessive manner. "I know you don't mean it. But if it makes you feel better, Maul, say that all you like."

"Your hamster would also make an excellent mop if my lightsaber were applied to him in the appropriate spot."

Obi-Wan now had the temerity to giggle as the two of them walked back to the elevator and began the ride upstairs with My Apprentice sitting smugly between them. "You'd never hurt Fluffi-Wan! He's a little pookums and you know it."

"He's a doorstop with an attitude problem and you know it."

They rode in silence for a moment.

"I knew you'd come out for me, you know."

"Shut up."

"I know you like me."

"Eat bantha poodoo."

There was a pause.

"I wrote you a poem."

"Not even your best 'swallow the sith-saber' skills are enough to make me forget you ever said that."

At that point Obi-Wan made the elevator stop, turned off its lights, and put forth a very earnest effort to make sure that Maul had a hard time remembering everything Obi-Wan had done to annoy him and, moreover, what his own name was besides.